Analysis of Prometheus, Or, The Poet's Forethought. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 (Portland) – 1882 (Cambridge)
Of Prometheus, how undaunted
On Olympus' shining bastions
His audacious foot he planted,
Myths are told and songs are chanted,
Full of promptings and suggestions.
Beautiful is the tradition
Of that flight through heavenly portals,
The old classic superstition
Of the theft and the transmission
Of the fire of the Immortals!
First the deed of noble daring,
Born of heavenward aspiration,
Then the fire with mortals sharing,
Then the vulture,--the despairing
Cry of pain on crags Caucasian.
All is but a symbol painted
Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer;
Only those are crowned and sainted
Who with grief have been acquainted,
Making nations nobler, freer.
In their feverish exultations,
In their triumph and their yearning,
In their passionate pulsations,
In their words among the nations,
The Promethean fire is burning.
Shall it, then, be unavailing,
All this toil for human culture?
Through the cloud-rack, dark and trailing,
Must they see above them sailing
O'er life's barren crags the vulture?
Such a fate as this was Dante's,
By defeat and exile maddened;
Thus were Milton and Cervantes,
Nature's priests and Corybantes,
By affliction touched and saddened.
But the glories so transcendent
That around their memories cluster,
And, on all their steps attendant,
Make their darkened lives resplendent
With such gleams of inward lustre!
All the melodies mysterious,
Through the dreary darkness chanted;
Thoughts in attitudes imperious,
Voices soft, and deep, and serious,
Words that whispered, songs that haunted!
All the soul in rapt suspension,
All the quivering, palpitating
Chords of life in utmost tension,
With the fervor of invention,
With the rapture of creating!
Ah, Prometheus! heaven-scaling!
In such hours of exultation
Even the faintest heart, unquailing,
Might behold the vulture sailing
Round the cloudy crags Caucasian!
Though to all there is not given
Strength for such sublime endeavor,
Thus to scale the walls of heaven,
And to leaven with fiery leaven
All the hearts of men forever;
Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted
Honor and believe the presage,
Hold aloft their torches lighted,
Gleaming through the realms benighted,
As they onward bear the message!
Scheme | ABCAB DEDDE FDFFD CXAAG BFBBF FGFFG XAXBX HGHHG IAIIC DFDDF FDFFD DGDDG AXCAX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 111010 10101010 10101110 11101110 1110010 10010010 111110010 0110010 10100010 101010010 10111010 111010 101011010 10100010 11111010 11101010 1010101 10111010 11111010 10101010 011001 01100110 011001 01101010 0110110 1111010 11111010 10111010 11101110 101101010 10111110 101011 10100010 10101 10101010 10101010 101110010 01111010 11101010 11111010 101000100 10101010 10100100 101010100 11101110 10101010 101001000 1110110 10101010 10101010 111010 011011 1001011 10101010 10101010 11111110 11101010 11101110 0110110010 10111010 111111 10001010 10111010 10101010 11101010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,128 |
Words | 346 |
Sentences | 16 |
Stanzas | 13 |
Stanza Lengths | 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 |
Lines Amount | 65 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 135 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 26 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:45 min read
- 125 Views
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"Prometheus, Or, The Poet's Forethought. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First)" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/18707/prometheus%2C-or%2C-the-poet%27s-forethought.-%28birds-of-passage.-flight-the-first%29>.
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